


Shotgun

by Hth



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Episode Related: Flight, None - Freeform, Pre-Slash, Series: Sixteen Instinctual Behaviors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 00:31:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hth/pseuds/Hth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim gets the hang of the Sentinel thing; Blair gets lost trying to read the map.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shotgun

**Author's Note:**

> This is the post-"Flight" story, but it takes place post-"Reunion." Trust me, it's really the post-"Flight."

## Shotgun

by Betty Plotnick

* * *

Shotgun  
by Betty Plotnick 

"Had it been high noon, that would have been one thing. That, I would've understood." 

"James. When are we going to be _done_ with this conversation?" 

He pitched his keys over Blair's head and into the basket, which he only did when he was in a good mood and wanted to show off. Why ragging on Blair always put him in such a good goddamn mood, Blair did not even pretend to understand. "But at four o'clock in the afternoon, Chief, I would think that the difference between east and west would, and I hesitate to use the phrase, dawn on a person." 

"Well, we're home *now,* aren't we? And anyway, if it was so goddamn apparent to everyone but me, then riddle me this: why did you turn left?" 

"Because you told me to turn left." 

Blair waved his hands in the air, an exaggerated *that's exactly my point* gesture. "I had no idea where I was going, Jim! I was leading you away from the sun at four o'clock in the afternoon when we were supposed to be going west!" 

"You were *navigating,*" Jim said solemnly. He made it sound like some native ritual function. Jim the Sentinel, Blair the Navigator. 

"Jim. What I was doing was _totally_ not called navigating. It was more like...auguring. With map." 

"Now's a hell of a time to tell me that." 

"Well...." What was he supposed to say to that, anyway? *But Jim, you asked me to navigate....* Like he was going to say _no_ to Jim. "When did you get so damn obedient, anyway? When I have a new test, it's nothing but bitch and moan and cast aspersion's on Blair's scientific qualifications, but put a map in my hand and the sun behind me and suddenly I'm Ponce de Leon? You _never_ do what I tell you to do!" 

"The guy who rides shotgun gets to navigate. It's practically a *law,* Sandburg." 

"*We were going east!* We live in Cascade! It's on the west coast! You can't go east to Cascade in an F-150!" Son of a bitch; Jim was _laughing_ at him. This whole stupid thing was Jim's idea of fun. Probably some...guy thing. Pick on the guy with the worst sense of direction. And with that thought, the horrible truth dawned on him; Blair backtracked the few steps he'd taken toward the kitchen, just to smack the back of Jim's head. "Asshole! You knew we were going the wrong way the whole time?" In spite of himself, Blair could feel his eyes crinkling up, the laugh building in his sinuses. 

Jim turned to look at him with mild, indulgent eyes. "Well, Christ, Sandburg. You were taking us *east.* Kinda hard not to notice." 

"You are _such_ an asshole." 

"We had the time. It was a nice day." 

Okay. So maybe Jim wasn't an asshole. Maybe Jim was the kind of guy who'd spend half a day and a whole tank of gas driving through central Washington, pay for waffles and lemon meringue pie at a diner called Peggy Jean's, tell stories about his beat cop days and bad '80s fashion decisions and the more colorfully neurotic of his ex-girlfriends, listen to Blair's theories on certain key mistranslations in early written versions of French folktales and his memories of his first solo research among the Papago when he was nineteen, and only say "Are you sure this is the way we came, Chief?" when turning west again would drive them back into the cooling red and grey and lapis blue skies of the end of sunset, which Blair had to admit had been one of the best he'd seen in a while. 

So maybe Jim was a prince among men, a saint, the best friend in the world, the light of Blair's life. Blair beat a strategic retreat to the kitchen, knowing just as sure as the fucking world that his eyes were lit up like the Fourth of July with pure, unscientific adoration. God, he _hated_ that he couldn't keep his goddamn issues out of his eyes. It was so...juvenile. Grown men did not have crushes; grown men had unrequited love, which was sober and melancholy and made you grow through hardship into a better person, like in *Casablanca.* 

There was nothing _sober_ about what happened to him when Jim went into prince- among-men mode. It made Blair feel like he'd been mainlining champagne. It was the best feeling of his life, and be damned if he was gonna do it in front of Jim. 

Which maybe didn't make a whole lot of sense, but still. Blair's mind was made up. 

He couldn't resist popping back out when he heard Jim playing through the answering machine messages, in spite of the fact that he got exactly the glare he expected to get for eating cold Chinese food out of the carton, with chopsticks, outside the kitchen. "Jim, man, who is that guy?" he said with his mouth half full. 

"Who, Feldman? He's my lawyer." 

"You could light a match off that guy." 

//did everything you said, Jimmy, but I have to say// The words rippled around Blair; he recognized them, could have repeated them, but he didn't care about them, and so they rolled off into nothing. 

"What do you mean by that?" 

"Jim! Your lawyer is, like, the gayest man I've ever heard who wasn't involved in show business or the food industry." 

Jim shrugged. "I never asked." //is a story here, and don't you think I won't hear the// 

"Ask? What ask? Sometimes you don't have to ask. What are you, _collecting_ queer Jews now?" 

"What are you, jealous?" Jim's slight smile was lazy, biting. 

"Yeah, man. Where's this one gonna live, the bathroom?" //anytime, it won't take but two seconds, we'll just sneak you in// 

Jim deleted the message. "Is he cute?" Blair asked, mostly to see how Jim would respond. Other than Jim's occasional flippant observation that anyone with an EKG reading was Blair's type, they didn't talk much about the _other_ way Blair's door swung, and to tell the truth Blair wasn't totally sure whose idea that was. 

Jim just shrugged again. "For a man who could be your grandfather? Sure. You mind taking that back in the kitchen? I'd feel just terrible if you were up all night scrubbing plum sauce out of the rug." 

A minute later, it occurred to Blair to ask, "What did he want?" 

"Who?" Jim's voice was faint; Blair wasn't sure where in the apartment he was. 

"Your lawyer." Out of habit, Blair pitched his voice louder, and then shook his head and chuckled at himself. How soon they forget. 

"Gotta go in and sign some papers. No big deal." His voice was a lot closer now; Blair glanced up from the refrigerator, and then he was sort of stuck, because Jim was leaning on the counter with one elbow, the other arm reaching across himself to pick through the fruit basket, and he'd taken off his shoes and his shirt, and you couldn't really justify staring at your roommate just because he looked like some kind of debauched preppy playboy in those chinos and that wifebeater, but the last thing Blair wanted to do was look away, because frankly Jim was his own justification. 

So what he really needed was an excuse to stand there, and Blair's trusty brain latched onto the nearest available moving object. "What kind of papers?" 

There was a pause so slight that Blair almost wondered if he was imagining it. Jim picked out a pear. "Just updating my will." 

"Cool," Blair said, with an avaricious grin. "Am I getting anything?" 

"Sandburg, it's often considered a wise move to _keep_ the guy watching your back from profiting too much in case of your sudden demise." 

"Aw, c'mon, Jim. You trust me." Blair gave him wide, Japanime eyes. "I just want that lava lamp you think I don't know you have in storage downstairs. That's all, man." 

Amazingly, for once, Jim didn't have anything to say -- not about the totally bullshit lava lamp Blair had invented, not about Blair grinding up glass in his Wonderburger for the insurance money. Nothing. He just ate his pear. 

Blair hopped up on the counter and started peeling a tangelo, confident that Jim would kick in with his half of the banter any second now. It had been a good day. Simon was recovered to the point where his biggest problem was boredom. It had been warm enough to leave the truck windows rolled down until almost ten o'clock at night. Jim had been *talking,* all day Jim had been talking, and now he just...wasn't. 

"Jim." No response. "Jim, I'm just kidding, man. I'm not going to get my feelings hurt just because I'm not in your will. I was messing with you." 

"I'm leaving you everything." 

Blair bounced a piece of tangelo peel off Jim's head and said, "You're not _leaving_ me at all," before the full weight of Jim's words kicked in. Holy *shit.* "Jim...." he began, and then stopped, as it sank in on him that he didn't know what came next. 

Jim's eyes were opaque, defensive. "I don't want to talk about this." 

"*Jim....*" Nope. Still didn't know. 

"There's nobody else. My brother doesn't need it. Carolyn didn't even ask for alimony; she wants no part of my money anymore. Has to go somewhere." 

"Yeah, I...I guess that makes sense. Well...thanks. I mean, my student loan officer will bless your memory forever." Something about Jim's little snort at that made Blair ask, even though it didn't exactly seem the thing to ask, "How much money are we talking about?" 

The hesitation this time was _definitely_ a hesitation. "Well, it's mostly not *money.* I mean, there's the loft." 

"The loft...." 

"And most of the rest is tied up in investments and that kind of thing. I don't know where it all is; I just know it's not in the checking account. I pay other people to keep track of it; they call once a year and let me know I'm still rich." Jim's voice sounded inexplicably bitter, which Blair assumed had something to do with his father. It usually did, with men -- Blair himself being the most significant exception he knew of. 

"So...you're telling me that if you go to the great precinct in the sky, my student loans are _totally_ not a problem." 

Jim looked at him, and the look was both flat and strangely aggressive, like he was daring Blair to start something. "It's about half a million." 

"Holy *shit!* Half a million *dollars?*" 

"I told you, it's mostly in assets," Jim said, a little defensively. 

"Holy *shit!*" 

"Sandburg, it's not that much. The estate taxes alone--" 

"To _you_ it's not that much. Holy *shit.* Is that including insurance?" 

"Well...." 

"Holy shit!" 

"Would you stop?" 

"Okay. You're right, I'm sorry. This is completely tasteless, man. Thank you very much for the thought, and let's just forget it, because you're not dying." 

Jim avoided his eyes. 

"Jim." 

He went to the refrigerator for a beer, avoiding even more transparently. 

"Jim!" 

"Just give it a rest, Sandburg," he said, and he sounded tired. It was after midnight, but he didn't sound after-midnight tired. "I told you, I don't want to talk about this." 

"No, no way, Jim, no way. What aren't you telling me?" A horrible, crushing fear snapped shut around Blair. Too much neural activity, the senses put too much stress on the brain, Jesus fucking goddammit, something degenerative, a tumor, what, what the fuck did being a Sentinel do to your body, what had neither of them ever seen coming? "Jim! *Fucking talk to me!* You're scaring the shit out of me!" 

"Okay, all right. Just stop yelling." Jim took a second beer out of the refrigerator and said, "Let's do this in the other room." 

Blair was glad Jim had thought of that. It was easier for Jim to pace around the windows, and much easier for Blair to sit in the dark, gripping the neck of his Michelob and hating himself for not wrenching all of this out of Jim weeks ago. He'd known _something_ happened in Peru, after all, but it had just seemed...easier, happier, to bask in the glow of their newly solid friendship. To let himself believe that somehow just being the good guys had made everything work out all right in the end, and that there would never be any kind of price to pay. 

"And you said yes?" he finished when it seemed like Jim wouldn't go on. Blair could hear his voice cracking just a little; it was undoubtedly louder in Jim's ears. 

"Well...yeah. Of course I said yes." 

"*Of course you said yes?* *OF COURSE you said yes?*" 

"Chief," he said, less awkward and more annoyed now, "what the hell was I supposed to say?" 

"*No?*" 

There was a silence, and Blair had no idea how long it went on. "You don't mean that," Jim finally said. "You know that wasn't an option." 

"Why? Because you have to save the world?" 

"No," Jim snapped, "because I _want_ to. There's no 'have to' here, Sandburg. I had a choice. I chose to...go forward with it." 

"Over the fucking cliff." 

"Look, what is your problem with this? I figured you'd be proud-- Well, not-- I mean, happy. I mean, *you're* the one who's been pushing this Sentinel thing on me since day one. You were right, okay? It's...real. It's who I am." 

Standing by the window, Jim was just a dark shape, but a familiar one. It amazed Blair _how_ familiar the rough lines already were -- the posture he'd studied so carefully, the cut of Jim's jaw and the slope of his beautiful shoulders. He looked like an icon, like the goddamn Sentinel, and Blair felt nauseous and fragile and misplaced. The sweat from his beer was soaking uncomfortably through his t-shirt. "And who am I, Jim?" 

Jim's head turned to look at him. "What?" 

"I've been with you, man, from beginning to end. This is my deal, too. You make this decision, you don't even ask me, _you_ just make the decision?" 

"You weren't there," he said bluntly. "It was a little bit time-sensitive, Sandburg." 

"Stop calling me 'Sandburg!' This isn't some fucking cop thing!" 

"Stop telling me what to do! My life is not your fucking Nobel Prize!" 

"You didn't even _tell_ me about it! I should have been the first to know!" 

"You're the only one who knows." 

"You know what I mean. I mean immediately. You cut me out of this the second it got real to you. How am I supposed to feel about that? And then you tell me that you promised to give up your life and your soul and you didn't think it was even worth mentioning to me?" 

"Well, now you know," Jim said, his voice heavy and slightly sarcastic. "Feel free to go ahead and make it all about you, now." 

And that hurt. A lot. Blair figured it was probably meant to, which oddly enough didn't really hurt; Jim had a temper, he could be cutting. Blair knew that. What really hurt was that.... 

Well, fuck. That it _was_ about Blair, or wasn't, and that was the problem. That he really did absolutely hate it that Jim had gone off into the spirit world or the Jungian depths of his unconscious mind or wherever he'd gone, and received his challenge and met it and returned bearing gifts for the people like Joe Campbell's wet dream, and that none of it had one damn thing to do with what Blair knew, even though he'd been trying so hard to understand this Sentinel thing, or one damn thing to do with what Blair wanted, even though he wanted so badly he could taste it to walk right up to that figment of Jim's imagination and punch it right in the goddamn nose and say, *You cannot have him, you fucking stay away from us, I won't let you ruin everything just so you can turn him into a hero.* 

Because whatever it was that had Jim in its grip now, Jim obviously wanted to be there. His choice. His mystical understanding, just Jim and the powers that be, hashing it out on their own terms. His...his identity. Hero, saint, and martyr, great and mighty Sentinel, and there was no room in any of it for Blair. He was just the guy who'd be getting the call once a year to tell him that his stock portfolio was doing great. 

Dammit, Jim wasn't even the one who had believed in Sentinels, or not until he'd had his face shoved in it a dozen times, anyway. Blair had _always_ believed. He'd invested his entire adult life in the Sentinel thing, and now he lived with it on a daily basis, and when push came to shove, none of that mattered. It belonged to Jim. It was about Jim. Blair could call himself Jim's partner, _Jim_ could even call him that, and so what? He still didn't get a vote when it counted. He didn't even get a memo. 

By the time the sting had begun to fade from the sudden confrontation with his own deep- seated selfishness, it occurred to Blair that (*selfish, selfish, self-absorbed...*) he'd let Jim just turn around and walk away. Jim was halfway up the stairs, and Blair was still sitting there fucking *processing.* He tried to say Jim's name, and nothing came out, so he got up, leaving the wet beer bottle on the coffee table, and crossed the floor and bounded up the steps after Jim so fast that he left his breath somewhere back there by the couch. Jim turned when he heard Blair pelting up behind him. 

He tried to speak again, and got just about as far. From three steps above him, Jim seemed to absolutely tower. Talk about larger than life. He made Blair feel insignificant, the sheer strength and competence and self-sufficiency of him. He made Blair feel young and terrible at reading maps and generally totally clueless when it came to the big things, like love and spiritual experiences and the Sentinel thing. 

Blair didn't know exactly what Jim could see in his expression, but Blair's own perfectly mundane eyes could just make out the slight softening of tension in Jim's face. For a moment, Blair let that be enough for him; Jim couldn't stay mad. That counted for something. 

Slowly, but not slowly enough that it didn't shock the hell out of Blair, Jim reached down to him, smoothing his fingers over Blair's loose hair. "You're scared," he said, in a tone of quiet revelation. 

It was a little bit of a revelation to Blair, too, but in the space of a second it became bone- deep knowledge. "Yeah, I'm scared. You'd trade your life to be a Sentinel? It's worth that to you?" 

"It isn't to you?" 

A harsh, startled laugh jumped out of Blair's lungs. "Are you kidding me?" 

"You told me once -- and granted, you were pretty drunk at the time \-- that death was, I quote, 'just an adventure, man, the big adventure.'" 

"I was talking about *me.*" And that was a revelation in progress, too. That he was ready to deal with his own death, but not Jim's. Selfishness again, maybe; by definition, he didn't have to _live_ with his own death. 

Jim's fingers tightened briefly on the back of Blair's skull. "Whatever, Chief. I just hope you don't have to use a map to get to where you're going on the other side." 

"Yuk yuk. You don't take a map on an adventure. That's what makes it an adventure." 

"Blair Sandburg -- the explorer, not the actor." 

Blair put his hand up to touch Jim's chest, and he had to do it in a rush to overcome his own better judgement and the months of care he'd put into not doing exactly this, so that the touch was almost a smack. Jim just looked down at his hand, then back at Blair's face, and it was much too dark for Blair to read anything coming off of Jim. "I'm not your partner," he said abruptly, and he regretted the bluntness but couldn't figure out a better way to say it. 

"You're the closest I've ever had." Also blunt, but in a textured way that made Blair shiver slightly. 

"I observe you. I think about you, I write about you, I theorize about you, I help keep you tuned up, in fighting trim. I live in your place, I follow you when you tell me not to--" 

"I'm glad you do." 

"I know you are. That's not the point. The point is...I promised you that I would give you answers, and I think you understand all of it better than I do. I think _only_ you can understand it. This is your adventure, man. This is your trip. I'm just...a really crappy navigator." 

With a light touch that was still somehow solid, with no give in it at all, Jim brushed his fingertips down Blair's face. It set off cannons in Blair's head, and then it was gone, and Jim was saying, "It would be a hell of a quiet trip without you." 

Weakly, Blair laughed. "I thought you liked your peace and quiet." 

"I thought so, too," Jim said, and there was no laughter there. Blair's knees went so suddenly shaky that he fully expected to go pitching backwards down the staircase. 

"What do you want, Jim?" Blair asked, not even really sure what the parameters of the question were. If you could put parameters on any of this, any more than you could draw a map through the spirit world. 

Jim sighed, or maybe just took a deep breath. "Chief, I have what I want. My life is on track for the first time since I can remember." 

Reluctantly, Blair stepped backwards, down one step, and then a second. "You don't need my help anymore, Jim. All I can do now is...study you." 

"What's so awful about that? That's what I promised you I'd help _you_ do, remember? It doesn't all have to be about helping me." 

"Thanks," he said automatically. *Thanks, Jim. Thanks for letting me go everywhere you go, thanks for offering me a PhD and a life and five hundred grand, and for going east instead of west just so we could hang out together. Thanks, and if I wanted more, like for instance half of your destiny and all of your love, well, it's come to my attention that I'm kind of a selfish bastard. Not really your fault.* Blair laughed, and he hoped it didn't sound too wooden. "You want to come speak to my Indigenous Religions class this time?" 

"Not in the slightest. I'm going to bed." 

"Goodnight," Blair said, taking another couple of steps down. 

By the time he'd made it to ground level, almost home free, Jim said, "Do you even know what you want, Chief?" 

"Fewer boundary issues." 

It didn't seem to be quite the answer Jim was expecting. He chuckled, one of those *you're a piece of work, Sandburg* chuckles that Blair liked to make him do. "Okay. Good luck with that. Let me know if I can help." 

"Um, yeah, I don't think so, Jim. Thanks for the thought." He couldn't quite justify saying, *You _are_ my boundary issue, you big jerk.* 

But then again, sometimes Jim was his own justification, which was how Blair found himself in his own room, saying, "Fewer boundaries," and wondering if Jim was upstairs listening to the sound of his voice. 


End file.
